Paper Cranes
by Mug of Doodles
Summary: Esperanza teaches MacCoy how to make paper cranes and they come to a silent understanding about how she feels about him. One-sided OC/MacCoy. Hints of Ange/'Coy.


**This character belongs to BellaSnow. I hope I did her justice and didn't make her Sue-ish. Bella's prolly gonna post a backstory for her, maybe. This is just a gift of loveee.  
>This is one-sided OC'Coy. Hooray for my first _published_ het! DC fic. _whatever.  
><em>On a side-note, 'Coy thinks he a ladies man, I swear. It's canon, no lie. So he'd prolly be really...flirtatious? But not ultra smooth like he thinks he is. (He's not Angel smooth) LOL **

**Disclaimer: MacCoy and Angel belong to Harmonix, yo.**

"Hey, Espy." MacCoy greeted, walking by a short girl seated at a small table. He did a double-take when the girl didn't reply, not even with her usual shy mutterings, and glanced down at what her brown eyes were concentrating on. He scowled, not fond of being ignored even if it weren't intentional, and planted his index on her forehead and pushed, lifting her head up.

"I said 'hi'," MacCoy reiterated.

Her eyes crossed, trained on the arm in front of her face, and MacCoy laughed. "Didn't see you there, MacCoy." The girl covered her hands over each other, hiding what she was fiddling with and the Russian eyed her hands before drawing a seat out behind him and plopping down.  
>He rested his elbow on the table, propping his head up with his palm, and slouched; his other arm curled around his stomach and his legs stretched out. The girl fidgeted in her seat after browns creeped up his thigh and landed on his heaving chest. She felt her ears burning and raised a hand to pull her hat further down her head.<p>

MacCoy watched her squirm with a sly smirk on his face, "What were ya doin'?"  
>"Just a project I was workin' on, a hobby of mine," she sputtered quickly, not meeting his gaze.<p>

He leaned forward smiling, with his elbows on his knees, eyes squinting from the broad smile. "Like what?"  
>Esperanza, knowing she wouldn't progress in life blubbering, tried to find her center; she breathed deeply and attempted to answer her crush in a tone that she would speak to a "non-crush" in.<br>"Origami." She failed miserably and they both knew this.

MacCoy looked impressed, blond brows arching up, "No shit?"  
>"No shit," she laughed nervously, verifying her ability.<p>

The blond was genuinely dazzled and scooched his chair closer to her. Esperanza nearly fell out of her seat when their knees touched lightly and warmth shot up her thigh and spine, color spreading over her face.  
>"Damn, chickie. Show me how," MacCoy begged, eager to learn something new.<p>

"Ah, well..." she started before the other interrupted her with a wave of his hand.  
>"Wait. What can ya make? Cuz if it's just those cheesy stork things then yer skills ain't all that great," he accused with an annoyed look on his face.<p>

Eyebrows furrowed and the clumsy dancer was obviously miffed; just because she had an intense crush on the guy didn't make him an exception to the Golden Rule. "My skills are awesome. I'm plenty good at makin' other things too," she asserted, defending herself, and then another statement followed as an after-thought. "And they're cranes not storks, uh durr."  
>"Whoa, Espy. I was jus' messin'. S'jus' some peeps talk the talk but can't walk the walk, ya dig?" He showed her his palms and flashed her a dashing smile.<p>

"I get worked up sometimes." She smiled sheepishly at him and he shook his head at her incredously, "Nah, Espy. We cool, ya jus' can't help keepin' yerself fresh like me. Ya gotta defend yerself. Anyways, 'fore I go all funky guru on ya, show me how ta make Origami shit."

She laughed, relieved and grateful for MacCoy's odd and understanding personality. She unfurled her fingers from around the paper she had been working on and set it on the table. MacCoy eyed it like he wanted to pick it up but the shy artist shuffled through her bag quickly, pulling out multiple pads of sticky notes with different designs on them and his attention turned to those.  
>"Sticky notes? The glue don't get in the way?" He asked with a bewildered expression.<br>She snorted, feeling more like herself now that she was had a distraction. "Not really. Glue makes it a bit easier to crease evenly. Can you make anything at all?"

MacCoy smirked, he never missed an opportunity to show off to a pretty face. "Hell yea, watch this." He peeled a paisley-printed square off the pad and turned his back to her, awkwardly hunched over to hide what he was doing. "No peekin'."  
>She immediately closed her eyes and opened one with a playful smile on her face. She leaned to the right in her chair to see past his shoulder. "I see ya." She slumped back in her seat and closed her eyes, a faint smile still on her face. This was probably the longest she lasted without embarrassing herself.<br>"'Kay. I made ya somethin'. Think of it as a token of my awesome." ' Coy finally finished and revealed his _masterpiece_ to the Puerto Rican. "Been awhile since I made one these so-"

The girl wiggled in her chair again, and not from nervousness this time but because of the mirth she contained. Espy let a rude snort slip and attempted to stifle her laughter with a hand.  
>"I said it's been awhile okay?" MacCoy whined, his face was horribly flushed and he hastily straightened crooked points on the folding he made.<br>She enjoyed this and giggled, clutching her stomach. "What is it?"  
>MacCoy leaned away from her, sitting up in his chair, and adjusted his goggles to help distract him from the crushing blow to his ego.<br>"A frog. It's a frog, Esp." He mumbled dejectedly, purposely leaving the _sometimes_ _vowel_ off her nickname. the toprocker wasn't able to say her full name, he always stumbled over the pronunciation and decided that the only way to avoid anymore teasing from Angel about his horrible Spanish-speaking skills was to give her a simple nickname. The name stuck and she liked it from what he could tell.

Her smile transformed into a mild frown, this wasn't going as great as she hoped it would. "Sorry, MacCoy."  
>He shoved the abomination into the pant pocket of his tracksuit and leaned towards her again. "We're even."<br>Esperanza brightened considerably at this whole "no hard feelings" part of their friendship.  
>She peeled another sheet off and handed it to the Russian and took one for herself.<br>Their fingers brushed lightly when she handed him a piece and MacCoy jerked back, "Shit, yer hands are cold. It's the AC in this joint, ain't it?"  
>"It's okay. I'm used to it."<p>

MacCoy remained unconvinced, tilting his head with a skeptical look on his face,"Yer lyin'. _I'm_ used ta cold weather. Here, ya practically ain't wearin' clothes anyways."  
>That much was true, but her clothes <em>did<em> serve a purpose. Dancing heated up a person's body quicker than running; crop tops and shorts were necessary, at least for females.

The Russian untied the jacket from around his waist, despite temperature drops from the studio's thermostat the excercise still overheated a person, and he handed it to the shivering girl with a chatising expression. She mumbled out a low, 'thank you' and slipped it on, relishing the warmth and scent. Zipping it up completely she refrained from visibly inhaling the fragrance imbedded in the threads.  
>The locker laughed and reached over to zip it down to <em>at least<em> her collarbone. "Doin' that makes ya look like a dork." She giggled out a, 'You would know,' and MacCoy mocked her with an playfully obnoxious expression.

There was something about him she couldn't quite place that made her feel at ease. She noted that her blushing and stuttering had cooled down, if only in microscopic proportions, and she, for some odd reason, felt proud. Feeling MacCoy's expectant stare she shook her head clear of gushy musings and continued.

"M'kay. We're gonna start with somethin' real simple, which is the paper crane-the _correct_ way. You gotta start with a square piece of paper and you always want the creases to be super crisp and sharp looking. I'll just show you each step, here, fold it like this and then repeat that with the other side," she explained while folding the paper diagonally so the corners would meet.  
>"Aww, shit. This is gonna be tight!"<p>

The couple sat for a good half hour and the cat-hatted girl was more than happy to lean into MacCoy's warmth for so long. She couldn't recall ever being this close to his face; she was always hiding in the background or semi-avoiding looking at his face and only ever staring at it when she thought he wasn't looking.  
>His eyes were currently glued to the project he was fiddling with and he squinted dark blues in concentration at different intervals, his tongue occassionally swiping across his lower lip. Her lips twitched at this and heat swirled in her belly. The blond had freckles splayed over the bridge of his nose and cheekbones and the dancer wondered if she could count them without being caught.<br>She shuddered at the thought and accidentally messed up a fold, overlaying the paper too much. Smoothing it out quickly, her eyes flickered over to the locker's hands fumbling with the small, now wrinkled square. The now annoyed B-boy let out a terse sigh, frustrated with himself.

"You're moving too fast. It's okay if it looks like crap when you first do it," she encouraged. She wanted to see him succeed and maybe, just maybe, stay close to him a bit longer.  
>MacCoy grumbled lowly and watched as the shy misfit backtracked, easily unworking seemingly complicated folds, and slowly talked him though the process again step by step.<p>

MacCoy thought she was a cute kid and had some talent, maybe a tad more than him when he first started out, which wasn't much. Her feet hardly seemed to be able to keep pace with the beat and the girl was far more bashful than the other females when a routine required more intimate steps and poses. A wave of nostalgia washed over him and he recalled constantly pushing himself past his limit in order to keep up with the others. While some of the other dancers that worked at the studio seemed to be born with a natural talent, they were some of the few who didn't automatically have a knack for it. He slowly climbed the ranks and went from being the underdog, all bark and no bite, to the dark horse. He believed the same could happen for her.

He acknowledged the fact that she had a crush on him, which he remained oblivious to until Dare pointed it out to him in private. At first, he thought she was as uppity as Aubrey because she declined dancing with him at Angel's established salsa night until Dare pointed out her obvious attraction towards him.  
>He complained about her to the pink-haired raver and the Brit shook her head smiling ruefully, "She's crushin' on yeh, love." His ego grew tenfold and for a moment he felt equal to the suave dancer Angel, but his spirits were promptly crushed by Aubrey when she made a rude remark about Esperanza being an 'even bigger dork than him so some sort of <em>natural attraction<em> was there.' The Russian wasn't particularly attracted to her, but he did admire her strengths and held a platonic love for her. He couldn't help flirting with her either, _it was all in good fun._

The girl managed to remain patient throughout the endeavor and moved giddily in her seat, surprising MacCoy with an excited outburst of violence.  
>"This is the best part. Pretend like it's a fox and you're breaking it's jaw."<br>The goggled-teen gulped, "Wait, what?"  
>She displayed the folding so far, which did appear to look something akin to a fox, and lifting both flaps (the jaws) up. He hummed with interest and they proceeded.<p>

"Now you gotta blow into it to make the body," she clarified, pursing her lips and blowing gently into the small opening on the underside of her creation.  
>MacCoy glared at his wrinkled lump of paper in disdain, "It don't even look like anythin'. Yers looks way cooler." He brought it to his lips, spreading the wings out, and blew harshly. They both flinched and he growled at his failure.<p>

"You gotta be gentle," she admonished softly.  
>"Bein' gentle is fer chicks...and Ange," he retorted. She arched a brow in question and he shook his head quickly, "Nothin'. I think ya needa do it, I'll just make it worse." He plopped the mis-shapen bird into her lap and she stared at it for a moment.<br>She pointed at it with her index, "Your mouth was all over this." MacCoy chuckled, "Yea, so? I ain't got cooties."  
>"'Course not!" She surprised the both of them and picked up the crinkled bird and placed it to her lips.<br>'It's sort of a kiss.' She closed her eyes and blew gently, an unexpected image of MacCoy flashing behind her eyelids and she hurriedly handed the half-inflated object back to him.

He flashed her a knowing look, "Thanks, chickie." She nodded in response.  
>He looked it over, inspecting his and hers and let out a sigh of disappointment. "Can we trade or somethin'? I hate mine. It's ugly."<br>"I think it looks cute." She poked at the one he folded and he let out an odd squawking noise. They both laughed loudly, annoying the elephant in the room.  
>Delicately picking it up he pecked her nose with it's off-kilter beak, or what was supposed to be one, and she scrunched her nose giggling.<p>

Lost in a haze of euphoria with her self-consciousness on temporary vacation she leaned towards him, tilting her head, and pressed a kiss to his lips. He pulled back slightly and she pressed on insistently before realizing that he wasn't doing _anything_. She jerked back abruptly, ready to apologize and he placed a scorching hand on her bare knee smiling at her. It was a sad smile of sorts, all lips, no teeth and barely curving.

The bright yellow hat was suddenly lifted from her noodle and tossed at MacCoy's unsuspecting head. It smacked him in the face and the buttery hat landed on the floor silently.  
>"What the hell, Ange?" he turned to glare at the Latino, hand slipping from her knee.<br>"Stop flirtin', _pollocito_ and let's go. I'm takin' you out tonight." Angel replied flippantly, heading for the exit without ever looking at the couple.

The Russian watched as the V.I.P. exited the studio and turned back to Esperanza smiling. "That's my ride."  
>He stood slowly, knees and spine cracking from being immobile, and he loomed over the clumsy girl, lingering. She reached to unzip the jacket but he swatted her hand away. "Don't sweat it."<br>He handed her back her cat-hat and lifted brown, messy bangs with his palm and bent over to plant a soft kiss on her forehead. Her body tensed and she fiddled with the ears on the beanie. MacCoy ruffled her shaggy hair, abolishing the awkwardness between them and he hoped he established an understanding between them.

"Catch ya on the flip side." He flashed her another winning smile and turned to walk briskly when Angel honked his horn, the goggled dancer muttering something along the lines of the male Latino being a 'jealous, impatient sonuva bitch'.  
>"See ya," she muttered, burying her face in the sleeve of his jacket when he left through the door.<p> 


End file.
